2000 Chrysler Town and Country - help!

[pslms81]

I have a 2000 Chrysler Town and Country, and my mileage stinks! I get on average about 17.8 - 18.5mpg, and that's city and highway combined - majority highway, as where I live, you either take the highway or go way out of your way on the side roads.

My question is, what can I do to improve my mileage? The lights out here in NW Indiana are unpredictable, and road rage potential is pretty high. I do what I can, like when I'm at a light that's taking a while, I turn the engine off, or at least put it in neutral. I don't do rabbit starts, and on the highway I use cruise control at 55-60mph - there's a lot of construction right now, though, so traffic can be stop and go. What are some simple steps I can take to improve my engine performance and mileage - anybody?

[tbaleno]

First read this: http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1510

Second, cruise control is good for beginners, but it actually is worse than controling the gas pedel yourself when you know what you are doing. Look up Driving with Load ( DWL ).

Also, no lights are unpredictable unless they have trip sensors. If a light has been green a while, you can pretty much know it is going to turn red by the time you get there. If the light is tripped by traffic then let others pass you and trip it to turn it green for you.

You are doing great with not doing rabbit starts, and keeping your speed down. Keep that up.

There are ways to deal with stop and go traffic, but a lot of times they are more advanced and could pose dangers if you don't know what you are doing, so read the article I posted the link too, try the basic stuff, and just work your way up with the techniques that you are comfortable with and work for you.

Don't try to do everything at once, just pick a few things at a time to get good at.

[BailOut]

Welcome to CleanMPG! The good two low-hanging things to start with are always the same:

1) Inflate your tires to their maximum sidewall rating (i.e. if your tires say "MAX LOAD 1 LB AT 50 PSI" then fill them to 50 PSI.

2) Get a ScanGauge II. No other tool in the world will give you a better idea of what's going on with your driving style from moment to moment. It's a true eye opener.

[Midiman]

pslms81,

Everything the others have said is right on the money. My wife drives a 1999 Town and Country (T&C) and she averages around 24MPG and she's just getting started. We live in a very hilly region of Virginia and about 25% of her driving is on gravel roads. Take heart, the T&C is capable of much more!

I'm far from an expert but I do have some tips and experiences from driving the T&C and I'll pass them on trusting others to correct me if I'm wrong.

1. Get a ScanGuage - This will help you immensely. However, before you take the plunge don't forget to take advantage of the onboard system you have in the trip computer. It has settings for avg. fuel economy per trip and instantaneous fuel economy. We set it to show us the instanteous numbers and then drive keeping an eye (safely) on the numbers to ensure we're getting the best FE possible at any giving speed.

2. Use your tach. Since the T&C comes with a tachometer you can use this to guage the "sweet spot" in your engine - the point at which you get the most power for the least fuel consumption. For instance, if you can get 10mpg at 1,500 RPM or at 2,000 RPM shoot for 2,000 to accelerate and get you up to gliding speed quicker. That extra 500 RPM is giving you more power at the same "cost." Slower isn't always better (just most of the time)

3. Glide as much as possible and keep your crusing speed down whenever possible. Those side roads don't sound too bad as long as they don't take you too out of your way and don't have too many stop signs/lights.

Having lived in Chicago for 10 years and driven NW Indiana quite a bit too I know the road rage and excessive speeds can be a problem. I frequently remarked to friends how the slow lane on 355 went 10 MPH OVER the speed limit. If you can stay in the 50 to 60 range on the HWY you will be much better served.

The T&C does much better at slower cruising speeds and the FE really dives miserably if you are going up any kind of incline (see DWL for tips on this).

Perhaps a little story will help illustrate what the T&C is capable of... When we moved from Chicago back to Virginia my wife followed our Uhaul rent-a-wreck which hadn't been loaded properly and would sway dangerously if we hit an overpass or crack in the road much higher than 45 mph. Needless to say, we flipped on the flashers and drove all the way from Chicago to Washington, D.C. going an average speed of 35 *ouch* on the interstate. But instead of needing the usual 3 tanks of gas in the van we made it in only 2 with some left over!

Keep trying - there's better numbers in store for you.

[HAFNHAF]

we have an 05 caravan. on a trip (pretty much highway only, until we got to fayetteville), we got 28 or 29 mpg. thats doing 70 with a/c on. it does great steady-state. the stop and go kills it though. 17 to 19 for our normal use, in town.

btw, how do you change the mpg meter to instant vs average? musta missed that in the manual...

[msirach]

I couldn't find my post from August. We took our son back to UVA in August in my brother-in-law's Grand Caravan. I serviced it before we left. Like Wayne said, air your tires up. I checked it's tires and one only had 20psi and the other three had different pressures with none over 33psi. I raised all 4 to 45psi, cleaned the air filter, washed the van , and removed the perpendicular roof racks. It has been reported that roof racks make up to a 10% fuel economy hit. I also plugged my Scangauge in and used it.
On the 700 mile trip to Charlottesville, it was packed floor to ceiling with 1 years supplies for a college student . I can't remember the exact numbers, but on the trip out, the mileage ranged from about a low of 24mpg to a high of 29mpg. On the trip home with just me and my wife, the tanks ranged from 27 to 33mpg. Coast all that you can. The Scangauge is a good investment that will pay for itself by reading the engine codes as well as showing you the engine load as well as other parameters.